


The Potency of Heaven-Born Mind

by akathecentimetre



Series: A Gentleman's Agreement [9]
Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: F/M, M/M, glamours, magic sex, magical research, medical ethics, river goddesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2018-12-31 22:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12142374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akathecentimetre/pseuds/akathecentimetre
Summary: “I’ve got to say – you’ve got some cheek complaining about our glamours,” Beverley said, grinning over her pint, “given whoyou’vebeen shagging for the last twenty years.”





	The Potency of Heaven-Born Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the Court of the Thames in _Broken Homes_.

*

Abdul Walid couldn’t have denied that he thoroughly enjoyed the Court of the Thames – from a safe distance. He had actually come planning to take notes, and with a freshly-laundered medical coat in his satchel, in anticipation of there being some ill effects which a doctor could be of help in ameliorating – because far be it for him to pass judgment on whether it was a good idea to have the most powerful magical beings in England allowed out to play in a public park in the middle of the capital, but it was a _terrible_ idea. In the end, he found that the notes he had hazily scrawled during the full flowering of the golden lights and the heady swirl of glamour were complete gibberish, and resigned himself to the inevitable of what was going to be a long night of tending to those drunk on beer rather than magic, if he could even be bothered.

He had spotted Thomas in the crowd, and at one point thought he saw Peter and Lesley on patrol, but in the end he was found – in the middle of sampling a rather delicious toffee apple – by a familiar face whom he found he had rather missed.

“Hey, Abs,” Beverley Brook said, and gave him a one-armed hug from the side which exposed him to a rather lovely mix of perfume and the dregs of white wine. “On duty?”

“No, just interested,” he smiled. “Your mother put on quite the show.”

Beverley tilted her head towards the western exit to the park. “It’s good to see you. Buy you a non-alcoholic drink?”

***

His first visit to the river goddesses, in the nineties, had been memorable to say the least. Beverley had been a child then, skinny and voracious and talking a mile a minute, and benevolently ignored by her sisters and Mama Thames as they casually lounged around the room at Shadwell Basin. It was a little shabbier then, given that the City hadn’t quite sold its soul to the moneyed overlords who were later to swoop in on it from overseas, but that didn’t – never could – take away from the glamour, and the sharp intake of breath Abdul found himself taking as they stepped inside.

“Steady,” Nightingale had murmured at his side, smiling, but ever wary.

The summons had been unexpected and unwanted, and, so Abdul was told, full of sly, tart insults about the Wizard having violated agreement such-and-such by selling his secrets to outsiders. Why that meant he had to be offered up to them on a platter, Abdul couldn’t tell, but Thomas had simply sighed and dropped the unfolded note next to his breakfast plate, and that was that. Walid was to be inspected, and, hopefully, would get out of it – relatively – unscathed.

“Just be your charming self,” Thomas muttered as they were shown through the kitchen by a slim, poised teenager Abdul would later learn was Tyburn, who threw off waves of suspicion and barely-disguised disgust at their presence. He couldn’t tell whether Thomas was trying to be reassuring, or sarcastic, or was giving him a real warning; and, to be honest, by the time he got into the same room with Mama Thames, he was beyond caring what sort of impression he made.

Mama was breathtaking. Literally. He felt positively greedy, following behind Thomas, as he took her in – Allah help him, he was feeling _all_ the attractions of paganism in that moment.

“Wizard,” she pronounced, with Tyburn sitting regally at her side and Beverley staring cat-eyed up from her feet. “I am glad to see you well.”

“And I you, Mama Thames,” Thomas said, the picture of politeness, and leaned down to kiss her fingertips. “We are honored by your invitation.”

“This is him, then,” Mama Thames said, her large black eyes moving slowly over Walid. “The latest lost soul for that drafty house of yours.”

“Luckily for him, his is a soul found,” Thomas said, more genuinely than Abdul might have expected; he wasn’t all that capable of thinking it through properly, however, given that his mouth was bone-dry with desperate awe.

“Leave him alone, mum,” Beverley said, rolling her eyes, and Abdul swallowed hastily, trying to blink past the smell of cinnamon and pepper in his sinuses.

“I think the doctor needs something to drink,” Mama Thames smiled, waving a hand to another young woman who swished silently into the kitchen. “No obligation, of course, my dear Nightingale.”

“Thank you,” Thomas said, and tugged briefly at Walid’s arm to get him to sit down next to him on the sofa opposite the goddesses. Abdul was a little more coherent, by then; he could hear steel in the pleasantries, and see the tension in Tyburn’s shoulders that told him she and probably the others were unnerved by Nightingale’s presence.

“Soon you shall start insulting me with lies about being a busy man, Wizard,” Mama Thames said, somehow managing to sound both flippant and threatening. “So I shall ask you now – what right does your pet have to interfere in the rites and deaths of our own?”

Walid sipped – a little too hastily, it turned out, because it was hot enough to burn – from the cup of cassava leaf tea the girl from the kitchen (Effra, he was to be told later) had deposited somewhat ungraciously into his hands, and turned to Nightingale.

“Are they talking about the mermaid?” he whispered, knowing he looked and sounded utterly absurd, and deciding, for the sake of his sanity, that he was just going to have to roll with being overwhelmed by the whole statuesque bevy of them.

“Perhaps,” Thomas said. Much to Abdul’s relief, he sounded amused and not put-out by Abdul’s complete loss of dignity. “We have indeed recovered the remains of what must be one of your nymphs,” he said, louder, gravely. “We deeply regret that the policemen who recovered her body were not aware of our agreements, and will be happy to return her to you as soon as we possibly can.”

Mama Thames looked at Abdul, her beautiful eyes narrowing. “What did you do to defile her, medicine-man?” she asked, sweetly menacing.

It had been quite a moment, the previous week, when the corpse was brought in to the UCH morgue and Walid was called. He’d been told over the phone, shortly and with not a little bit of confusion, that a girl had been pulled dead from the shoreline of the Thames at low tide by the modern, metal detector-wielding equivalent of a mudlarker; that she was young; that she had almost certainly drowned; and that, to make it interesting enough for them to dial Walid, she was a suspected sufferer of Apert syndrome. When he’d gotten down to the morgue and seen her webbed hands and feet, he had almost been inclined to call the case closed and leave the circumstances to the coroner.

He'd performed a full autopsy as a matter of course, and only realized that the smell from the body was far too sweet and uncorrupted to be natural when Thomas had suddenly arrived and, upon seeing the nymph, let out a string of curses best suited to being under fire in a trench.

“I apologize for all of my offenses,” he said finally, putting his cup carefully down in his lap. “I am well aware of the strictures and rites of others, and should have considered them in this case.”

“A Mohammedan who carves the dead,” Mama Thames said, as though relishing the contradiction, and kissed her teeth hard. “You are a complicated man, doctor.”

Beverley, apparently immune to her mother’s disapproval, wriggled her way across the carpet and plopped an elbow onto the sofa next to Walid. “Is it true you can see what magic does to a brain?”

“Er,” Abdul said, swimming his way weakly back against the tide. “I’ve done some experiments, yes.”

“Can you look at _mine?_ ” she said, wide-eyed and predatory.

Abdul smiled, something of his scientific spirit returning. “I think your mother might object.”

“Pleeeeaaaase can I, mum,” Beverley said instantly, whirling back to Mama Thames. “He’s all right. I want to see my brain!”

Mama Thames considered them for a long moment, not letting anything of what she was thinking make its way into her expression. Then she looked at Thomas, and settled back further in her chair as though preparing to pass judgment.

“You approve of this work?”

“I do,” Thomas said evenly. “His conclusions may come to be of use to us all.”

“Mm,” Mama Thames hummed, non-committal. Then she turned swiftly back again to Abdul.

“You shall come and see us often, Doctor,” she said sternly. “I wish to be kept informed of your researches.

“Besides,” she added with a sigh, “our local GP is horrendous.”

“Thank you,” Abdul managed to say, half-strangled, and was halfway through bowing as he stood before Thomas took his elbow and steered him firmly outside.

“Merciful Allah,” he croaked, and slid down to sit on his arse on the dockside, far too dazzled to get Thomas to stop laughing at him.

***

They ended up at the Mulberry Bush, a bustling pub on the Upper Ground which was just quaint and old-fashioned enough to let Abdul get away with ordering his usual lime and soda instead of a newfangled virgin cocktail. He made a beeline for the bar as soon as they arrived to make sure he didn’t even have to worry about the obligation question, and brought his glass and a pint of lager over to where Beverley had settled in at a corner table, pulling her dreads into a cascade over one shoulder.

“It’s good to see you back in London,” he said as he sat, and meant it. “How are you?”

“Frustrated,” she said, instantly, with a conspiratorial smile. “Here’s something you should be able to help me with – how do I get a stubborn wizard to fuck me already?”

Abdul concentrated very hard for a moment on not spitting out his drink, and took another moment to consider the question. “In my case, it took getting mangled by a goblin. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Urgh,” Beverley said, her eyes teasing and curious. “Pass. Though I bet their lot enjoy being the white knight to our damsels in distress.”

“You could never be in distress, of course,” he smiled, and she accepted the tipping toast of his glass with a smug nod.

“I’ve got to say – you’ve got some cheek complaining about our glamours,” Beverley said, grinning over her pint, “given who _you’ve_ been shagging for the last twenty years.”

“Allah preserve me,” he sighed, feeling more than a little stunned. “How long have you all known, anyway?”

“Oh, I think mum knew since the start. She was always making jokes when I was little about the Nightingale building a nest.”

Abdul frowned as he worked his way through what she’d actually said. “Thomas is no god. I’ve never felt anything remotely resembling your sort of glamour from him – and certainly nothing coercive.”

“No, I doubt you would have,” she said thoughtfully. “But here – what do you feel from me, right now?”

Abdul looked her carefully up and down, and drew in a slow breath. “Lilies, water lilies,” he said. “Cut grass on playing fields. A touch of sewage,” he added, apologetically, “though I understand your local council has stepped up their improvements of late.”

“And it’s about time,” she said, with an angry pinch in her eyes. “But my point is – those aren’t _vestigia_ , Abdul. I’m alive and well and giving off magic like I’m made of it, and Nightingale does too.”

“Does he?”

“Hah,” Beverley said triumphantly. “Pine, canvas, smoke. Every time. We all sense it. And I’ll bet,” she said, tapping Abdul pointedly on his knuckles, “you’ve felt other things, too.”

He was surprised to realize he had – though in the context of this particular conversation, he was loth to admit it. He didn’t want to say anything about the sudden doubt that was percolating in his head, about the moments when Thomas’s smile had taken his breath away, or the real light-headedness of the months he had spent living in the Folly all those years ago, when he’d felt captivated and tireless and important.

It didn’t sit well with him to think that there was anything other than choice about those moments – those moments that they still shared, for Allah’s sake, had shared just a few nights before when Peter was asleep in the coach house and Molly, perceptive Molly, had sneaked upstairs to turn down the bed for them after dinner. It didn’t sit well at all.

“You think too much about the harm magic can do, you know,” Beverley said, her smile fading into something more serious. “All I ever hear from you is broken brains this, or burned bones that. There’s far more to magic than causing damage. Or the physical, come to think of it.”

“I’ve wondered about that myself,” Abdul nodded, suddenly glad to have something concrete to talk about. “My working theory is that Newtonian magic – for obvious reasons – is based so entirely on the physical that the damage is all we can know and measure. It’s all centred on physics itself, on the rules of the universe, on the restrictions of Latin – ”

“Ah,” Beverley said, her face lighting up with mischief, “but Newton was also a complete _madman_. I’ve done my reading – know thine enemy, and all,” she added lightly, and somehow Abdul doubted that was entirely a joke. “The man was off his bloody rocker. He was an alchemist, and believed in Atlantis and the philosopher’s stone and god only knows what about angels and all the weirdness the Bible provides, and you can bet your arse he knew what a glamour was. Baba Thames was around and thriving in his day, especially with the Old London Bridge still intact.

“‘More than is ever dreamt of in your philosophy,’ Abdul,” she quoted, her smile turning sly. “Next time you and the Nightingale are DTF, you should keep your eyes open. Or just ask,” she added, her voice lowering, and suddenly Abdul had quite a clear picture of the sweetly tortuous hell that must have been Peter’s love life. “I’m sure Thomas would be happy to oblige you.”

“Right,” Abdul said, backed into vague incoherence. “Good.”

Beverley giggled, and swallowed down the last of her pint with a flourish. “I’ll see you around, doctor. Don’t think so hard,” she said as she got up, and dropped a fond little kiss onto the top of his head as she left.

It was fully dark outside by the time he finished his drink and gathered himself to leave, and he felt no little bit of relief when he stepped out of the pub onto the pavement to see Thomas coming towards him, slight concern in the corners of his eyes.

“I heard you’d been kidnapped,” he said as he approached, fetching up with a brief touch to Abdul’s elbow. “What have you been up to?”

“Oh, nothing important,” Abdul smiled. “Just receiving sex advice from Beverley Brook.”

“Good Lord,” Thomas said, his eyebrows rising precipitously. “Should I be worried?”

“Do you know,” Abdul grinned, “I think she might be onto something. But you’ll have to help me figure out whether it works.”

“Hm,” Thomas said slowly. “Now?”

“Are you needed?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Thomas said, amusement and something far more interesting to Abdul sneaking into his tone. “I believe the boys are planning something called a ‘pissing contest,’ but that should be several hours away yet, so I’m not worried about any imminent drownings.”

“Right, then,” Abdul said, and reached out to take Thomas’s hand. “I suggest you lead on.”

*

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Edmund Halley's 1686 ode to Isaac Newton. Thanks for reading!
> 
> P.S. - anyone have any tips on how to make the Walid/Nightingale tag take on AO3? I've used it 4 times now and it doesn't show up automatically when typing, and when you click on it it redirects to Thomas/Thomas(??).


End file.
